How Airlines Are Responding to the Malaysia Airlines Crash

A Malaysia Airlines 777 crashed in Ukraine today, and airlines have reacted by diverting their aircraft from the region.

On Thursday, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine, reportedly killing all 298 people aboard. Although details are still emerging, initial reports suggest that the plane may have been shot down by a ground-to-air missile. In response to the disaster, a number of international airlines have canceled or rerouted flights over Ukraine. But many observers are asking: Why were civilian airliners allowed to fly into a conflict zone to begin with?

Details are still murky, and government officials have called for investigations into the crash, but answers as to what caused it should emerge soon. The plane’s black boxes recorders have reportedly been retrieved and rescue workers were on the scene. But the fact that the jet was at cruising altitude in one of the busiest air corridors in the world has shocked and alarmed the aviation industry. Many airlines fly along the same path on routes connecting northern Europe to Asia; carriers announcing they would avoid this airspace for the time being include Air France, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Turkish Airlines, Aeroflot, Transaero, and KLM (whose two-letter code was actually on that flight under a code-share partnership with Malaysia). Emirates Airlines had already said it would cancel its service to Kiev starting August 1. Malaysia Airlines released a statement noting that the passengers aboard MH17 included 154 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians (of them 15 crew members and two infants), 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians (one an infant), and nine British citizens; there are unconfirmed reports that 23 Americans were also on the flight.

Why airlines weren’t cautioned about flying into the contested Donetsk region of Ukraine is unknown: In April, the Federal Aviation Administration and other air traffic control organization took steps to prohibit U.S. aircraft and pilots from flying over or near the Crimean peninsula after Russia annexed it, but that region is far from the area where MH17 went down. An FAA spokeswoman told Condé Nast Traveler today that the agency hadn’t yet decided whether it will further restrict U.S. flights in the area.

Compounding the tragedy is the continuing mystery over what happened to Malaysia Flight 370, another 777 carrying 239 persons. It presumably crashed somewhere over the Indian Ocean in March, but the aircraft has not yet been found.

Update 7/18: The FAA has prohobited U.S. flight operations "until further notice, in the airspace over eastern Ukraine, due to recent events and the potential for continued hazardous activities. The restricted area includes the entire Simferopol and Dnepropetrovsk flight information regions (FIRs)."